


The Misadventures of Redshift and FrostByte

by Apathetic_Abstract_Apotheosis



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff and Humor, Secret Identity, secret identity shenanigans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:47:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27857801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apathetic_Abstract_Apotheosis/pseuds/Apathetic_Abstract_Apotheosis
Summary: Things aren't going so well for newbie hero Redshift, after being humiliated by FrostByte on her first major outing she's now the laughingstock of the city. At least she's got her sister, the legendary Sun Dragon to help her get back on top and her girlfriends Weiss and Penny to support her in her civilian life.Continuation of the Superheroes AU I wrote for Frosen Steel Week
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long, Ilia Amitola/Blake Belladonna, Ilia Amitola/Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long, Ilia Amitola/Yang Xiao Long, Penny Polendina/Ruby Rose, Penny Polendina/Ruby Rose/Weiss Schnee, Penny Polendina/Weiss Schnee, Ruby Rose/Weiss Schnee
Comments: 18
Kudos: 96





	1. Chapter 1

“Hey, Rubes, you finally _cooled_ off after yesterday?” Ruby groaned loudly and let her head fall against the table of her and Yang’s base-cum-garage.

“Do you really have to, Yang?” She whined, not needing to look up to know her sister had a shit-eating grin spread across her face.

“Oh, come on, I’ve got loads more ice puns.” Yang snickered, dropping down into the other chair. It was the day after Redshift’s disastrous attempt to stop FrostByte from robbing the bank and news had spread fast in the hero community of her failure.

“I was humiliated, Yang. She had the gall to monologue at me. Monologue!” Spending the evening with her girlfriends had somewhat ameliorated her feelings about the loss, but they’d all come rushing back to her when she saw her twitter feed that morning.

“Well, of course she did. No matter what she says, Frost is still kind of old school.” Ruby could hear the amused smirk in her sister’s voice and she shifted her head to give Yang an aggrieved look.

“I was frozen in place and forced to listen to her tragic backstory.” Ruby whined, eyes wide and begging Yang for some sympathy. Ruby had felt bad for Frost when she’d told her about her trials and how the world had beaten her down at the time. Now that she was the laughingstock of the city, she felt far less sympathetic.

“Ooh, what is it? Lemme guess… jilted lover?”

“Nope, disgruntled scientist.”

“Damn, should have guessed. I forgot she made all her tech herself, of course she’s a disgruntled scientist.” Yang shook her head in disappointment. “Another one from SchneeTech?”

“Funnily enough, yeah.” Ruby raised her eyebrow at Yang. “How’d you know?”

“There’s enough of them that they could start a support group.” Yang rolled her eyes. “Hell, maybe you should introduce Weiss to Frost, I’m sure they’d get on fabulously.”

“I get the impression she wouldn’t be very happy to meet the daughter of the CEO who screwed her out of her patents.” Ruby sighed. Weiss didn’t exactly like to advertise her connection to SchneeTech, especially after she left them under what she termed ‘difficult circumstances’, which she refused to elaborate upon.

“Hmm probably not. Still, I do have one important question. For an icy villainess, just how hot is she?” Yang waggled her eyebrows as Ruby let out a snort of disbelief.

“Are you for real, Yang?” She asked incredulously.

“Hey, nobody I know has gotten close enough to her to tell me, so I gotta ask you.” Yang explained patiently and Ruby rolled her eyes.

“You’re terrible, you know that, right?” Yang simply smirked as Ruby continued. “And I’m not like you, I could never date someone I didn’t know out of costume. How are Nightshade and Karmaleon, by the way?”

“They’re good, still keeping out of jail, and we’ve got a date tomorrow night.” Yang’s smile became rather goofy as Ruby rolled her eyes.

“And when you say date, what you actually mean is…”

“They’re planning on breaking into the museum to ‘liberate’ a few antiques and I intend to stop them, before we have a lovely meal at Joe’s diner.” Yang finished for her, still with that smile on her face.

“I will never understand you sometimes, Yang.” Ruby shook her head. “Also, in your eagerness to know how attractive my new nemesis is you somehow forgot the fact that I’m in a very happy relationship already.”

“You should learn to live a little, Rubes. I’m not saying you should cheat on Weiss and Penny or anything, but maybe try flirting a little, spice up the whole heroes and villains thing.” Yang suggested, and Ruby sent her a weary look.

“You know full well I don’t like buying into all that crap. I’m a hero to help people, not for the glory.” She reminded Yang with a small frown. “And certainly not to meet up with girls.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. You’re so much purer and better than the rest of us who are just attention whores.” Yang muttered, folding her arms.

“I didn’t say that.” Ruby protested with a frown. “I know you do it to help other people too, Yang. Most people would become villains if all they wanted was attention. I just don’t like having to play the publicity game and stuff, it’s boring and gets in the way.”

“I know, Rubes, I’m sorry.” Yang sighed and shook her head. “I should probably head out on patrol for a bit, clear my head.”

“Um, would you mind if I came with you?” Ruby asked hesitantly, earning a curious look from Yang.

“Why do you want to do that? I thought you wanted to branch out a bit more on your own?”

“I just want to spend some time with my sister, nothing wrong with that.” Ruby lied, eyes flickering nervously as Yang continued to scrutinise her for a moment.

“Right, because you want sisterly bonding time and definitely not because your confidence got shaken yesterday.” Yang’s eyebrow raised as Ruby made several noises of denial.

“Pfft! No! I’m not shaken at all. I’m perfectly fine! Great, even!” Ruby said in a tone she hoped was brimming with confidence.

“Ruby, it’s okay to feel bad and shaken when you lose, you know how I was after Taurus.” Yang’s hand flexed instinctively just mentioning the man’s name.

“That was different, you got badly hurt, I was just humiliated.” Ruby frowned now. “I should be fine, it was just a minor setback.”

“I know, Rubes, but how many fights have you lost that weren’t in training?” Yang asked and Ruby had to wrack her brains for the answer.

“I don’t think I’ve lost any actually.”

“Exactly, and it’s okay if that shakes you a little. You’ll pick yourself back up, like you always do, and keep going.”

“I guess…” Ruby continued to frown a little as she looked up at Yang. “Can I still come with you on patrol though?”

“Okay, sure. Just remember not to call me sis this time. Hero names only.”

“You got it, Sun Dragon!” Ruby broke into a smile before rushing off to grab her costume. With an amused huff of laughter, Yang followed after her sister at a slower pace, ready to start the day.

* * *

“Work, you fucking useless piece of crap!” Weiss screamed in frustration, throwing down her soldering iron and glaring at the internal workings of the sonic rifle. This would teach her to buy things from less reputable arms dealers. She could have made one herself, though it wasn’t exactly in her wheelhouse as a cybernetics expert and environmental scientist, so she’d figured it was simpler just to buy one from Torchwick.

Of course, despite the stellar recommendations the man had as a supplier of henchmen and conventional arms, it seemed that his ability to provide superscience technology was far, far worse. Weiss had probably spent more time trying to get this one to work than she would have needed to build her own.

Still, she was nothing if not stubborn, and she’d already invested the money. It would be a waste of funds. Grumbling to herself, Weiss picked up her soldering iron and set it back in its holder before removing her goggles and rubbing at her eyes. It had been a long morning, not helped by the news that had come out about that bank robbery.

At least she’d come out on top in the reporting whilst that amateur hero had been utterly humiliated, but it wasn’t all good news. Weiss had hoped that she’d avoid making the news or pinging on any major heroes’ radar until she was fully prepared to join the big leagues. Any sort of media attention only made her job more difficult.

Deciding to abandon the project for now, Weiss got up from her workbench and wandered over to Penny, who was busy relaxing in the small break area of the warehouse. It wasn’t much, but an evil lair was an evil lair, and it was quite a nice home away from home where her law-breaking would go undetected by her other girlfriend.

“Still not working, sweetie?” Penny asked sympathetically, not needing to look up from her magazine to know her girlfriend was approaching.

“No, and I am this close to getting it to.” Weiss grumbled, flopping down on the sofa beside Penny and snuggling into her side. “Stupid Torchwick.”

“I told you not to buy this sort of thing from him.” Penny reminded her, turning a page calmly. “But you didn’t listen.”

“He had the cheapest prices.” Weiss said sulkily, not liking how Penny wasn’t supporting her misery.

“And we both know that you get what you pay for.”

“Well, I suppose it’s a good thing we didn’t get everything we need from him, or we’d really be stuck.” Weiss sighed as she wrapped her arms around Penny. “Of course now we need to find a new supplier for those things.”

“Maybe Nightshade would know? She does know pretty much everyone.” Weiss nodded slowly at Penny’s suggestion. Nightshade was a reliable enough source and something of a friend, she’d be unlikely to scam them.

“Okay, sure. Can you give her a call?”

“I already did, she’ll meet us at the café in an hour.” Weiss frowned a little at this independence Penny was showing, even if Weiss had programmed her to be that way. She was supposed to be the one in charge, not her former assistant. She didn’t say anything though, and she got up.

“I guess I should get changed into something more inconspicuous.” Weiss gestured to her stained overalls that she wore whenever she was working on a project. “Then we can head out.”

* * *

“Seriously, dude? What on Earth made you think that mugging someone in broad daylight in front of two supers was a good idea?” Sun Dragon asked the would-be criminal incredulously as Redshift finished tying him up.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just don’t let the cops know I got taken down by her.” He grumbled, jerking his head at Redshift. “It’s bad enough I got caught, but it had to be by Captain Failure, didn’t it?” Redshift’s shoulders fell and Sun Dragon’s eyes flashed with anger.

“You shut up, she got you fair and square. The cops are on their way.” Muttering under her breath, Sun Dragon turned away from the trussed-up criminal and flashed a bright smile at his would be victim. “You should be safe now, ma’am, but I suggest you stick around to tell the police what happened so you can press charges.”

The young woman nodded in agreement, and Redshift watched and rolled her eyes as she seemed to be flirting with Sun Dragon, just like every other person they’d helped today. Ruby might have been in a happy and loving relationship, but would it kill people to give her the same sort of attention they gave to Sun Dragon?

Huffing, Redshift leaned up against a building, trying to quell the familiar jealousy that was heaping on top of her current feelings of inadequacy. It wasn’t Sun Dragon’s fault people paid more attention to her than Redshift.

Okay, it was a little, what with her very form-fitting costume that exposed her enviable abs and highlighted her bust. But it wasn’t her fault Redshift had designed her costume to be as desexualised as she could. Made for comfort and practicality over looks, the only flairs she’d allowed were the splashes of red she’d added just to make it a little more interesting.

Redshift wasn’t entirely sure why she was feeling like this about Sun Dragon getting all the attention. She hated the spotlight and despised being ogled by anyone who wasn’t Penny or Weiss. With a deep sigh, Redshift pulled her goggles off to rub at her eyes and clean the fog that had condensed on the inside.

She hadn’t yet come up with an adequate way to stop them from steaming up after too long and she was annoyingly aware that she herself probably wouldn’t be able to. Engineering wasn’t her strong point, that was Weiss and Penny’s thing. Maybe she could ask them to do it for her, though that might raise a few awkward questions.

Redshift was so caught up in her thoughts about how she could get her goggles improved that she didn’t notice Sun Dragon was waiting for her until she gave a loud cough.

“Shall we keep going?” She asked with a cocky smirk as Redshift kicked off the wall, brought out of her thoughts.

“Yeah, sure.” Snapping her goggles back in place, Redshift flashed a grin at Sun Dragon before shooting off, up a nearby fire escape and onto the roof of the building. She waited a moment for Sun Dragon to catch up with her, the fiery heroine propelling herself up with jets of flame, and the two took off across the rooves, laughing as they went on the hunt for more crime to stop and people to help.

* * *

“They’re gone, Weiss, you can come out now.” Weiss peered nervously out from the alleyway and watched the flaming trail that Sun Dragon left behind as she leaped across the rooftop with Redshift leading the way.

“Good, for a moment I was worried.” She huffed, brushing off her blouse and continuing down the street to the café. It was well-known amongst the villain community as the hangout for villains who didn’t want to drink, though Weiss wasn’t quite sure how they managed to keep it a secret from the heroes.

“You know we are in plainclothes, right?” Penny asked as she followed after Weiss. “It was unlikely she’d recognise us.”

“I’d rather not take the risk.” Weiss said as they approached the door and Weiss opened it, gesturing for Penny to go ahead of her. “And don’t forget that we’re FrostByte in here.”

“You know I won’t.” Penny rolled her eyes affectionately before entering the café, Weiss following after her with the door swinging shut behind her. The place had a surprisingly comfy atmosphere for a place where some of the worst scum of the city hung out. Well, not quite the worst, those ones did prefer dive bars like Junior’s on the seedier side of the city. Café Adel catered to a more refined clientele, and FrostByte fit right in amongst the various patrons, almost all of whom wore large sunglasses of some description in an attempt at maintaining some sense of anonymity.

“Hey, FrostByte. The usual?” Velvet asked as the couple approached the counter.

“Yes, please.” Frost offered the woman a grateful smile, still a little perplexed by how gregarious the villains of Vale could be. She and Byte were relative newcomers to the scene, but they’d caused a bit of a stir in the community after beating The Cardinal to a heist and getting away scot free, leaving him to get arrested.

“I’ll have those brought over to you. Nightshade said she was waiting for you.” Velvet inclined her head at one of the booths towards the back of the room, where Frost recognised the familiar black bob and long brown ponytail just about the bench.

“Thanks, Vel.” Placing down more than enough money to cover their drinks, Frost led the way over to Nightshade and Karmaleon’s table. “Hey Nightshade. Byte didn’t mention Karma was coming along.”

“You know as well as everyone that where Nightshade goes, I go.” Karmaleon pointed out, sipping at an iced coffee of some description. “Besides, we share everything.”

“Including a girlfriend.” Frost fired back, the light banter being something of a habit now. “Sun Dragon still trying to convince you two to use your powers for good?”

“It’s sweet that she thinks she can redeem us.” Nightshade spoke with an amused chuckle, blowing gently on her cup of tea. “Don’t worry though, we’ll get her to understand eventually.” Frost nodded in sympathy. To most people, Nightshade and Karmaleon were thrillseekers, committing daring heists for fun and profit. To a select few in the villain community, they were better known as liberators of stolen items, and for having a particular hatred for big exploitative corporations.

It was a mission Frost could get behind, and that was partly what made them such firm friends. Frost had even hired the pair once or twice to get some petty revenge on SchneeTech. But today wasn’t about Nightshade and Karmaleon’s girl troubles.

“We can catch up a bit later, right now I need to find a reputable supplier for some items.” Frost reached into a pocket of her overcoat and pulled out a folded piece of paper, which she handed over to Nightshade, who opened it up and scanned over it, showing it to her partner as well.

“This is some fancy-looking stuff.” Karmaleon commented, her eyes clearly trailing down the page. “I don’t even know half of these things.”

“I have a vague idea of what everything here is, and I think I know a few places you can get it.” Nightshade said after a few moments of thought. “That said, I thought you were using Torchwick as your supplier.”

“I bought a sonic rifle off him yesterday and I haven’t been able to get it working despite hours of work on it.” Frost complained, folding her arms irritably and nodding her thanks to Velvet as she brought over her and Byte’s coffee.

“Ah, that would do it.” Nightshade nodded in sympathy whilst Frost took a sip of her coffee. Coco and Velvet made some of the best drinks, and Frost would have loved to bring Ruby here to try one of their iced frappuccinos knowing her love of sugary drinks.

Of course, she could never bring Ruby here. Frost was determined to keep Ruby as far away from this as possible. Ruby was the last piece of normalcy Frost had left to cling onto, even if Frost was unworthy of the younger woman’s love.

“Okay, here you go.” Frost was jerked out of her thoughts by Nightshade passing her list back to her with a few annotations. “You should be able to get the stuff from these sources. I hope you’ve got the bank for it.”

“Don’t worry, we’ve got plenty.” Byte said whilst Frost checked over the list. “You probably saw the news.”

“Oh, we did. Did you really have to freeze Redshift like that?” Karmaleon asked Frost who shrugged.

“She interfered in my business. I did way less to her than a lot of others would.” She pointed out which Nightshade and Karmaleon couldn’t refute.

“I guess, but just so you know, we’re going to get a ton of shit for it tomorrow.”

“How come?” Frost asked curiously.

“Because Redshift is Sun Dragon’s baby sister.” Byte filled in, finishing off her drink whilst the other three stared at her. “What? That is what you were going to say, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, but how did you know that?” Karmaleon continued to stare at Byte incredulously.

“I thought it was common knowledge, given how Redshift has been overheard referring to Sun Dragon as ‘sis’ at least thirteen times.” Byte explained, tilting her head in confusion. “I’m sorry, was I not supposed to know this?”

“It’s not a connection they like to advertise.” Nightshade’s finger traced the rim of her cup nervously. “Heroes can’t really afford to have connections to people like we can, lest they get exploited by less scrupulous people than ourselves.”

“I understand. This doesn’t leave the table.” Nightshade flashed Frost a grateful smile as she picked up her cup again.

“Good. So what have you been up to, other than fixing Torchwick’s shoddy tech?”

* * *

Penny’s Log

Entry No.: 2475

Date: 2018-05-07T19:43:23-05:00

Today was a productive day. Weiss managed to acquire several of the components she needs to create her localised weather pattern manipulator, as well as more weaponry so we can acquire the other remaining pieces.

We almost ran into Ruby today. Her and Yang were out on patrol and Weiss was afraid that she’d be recognised. Somehow I doubt it, since neither of them seems capable of realising that they were fighting each other yesterday.

Granted, it was the first time they’d met in costume, but even so, being unable to recognise one of your girlfriends is quite far fetched.

However, I still hold out hope that they’ll work it out soon enough. If I just keep guiding them, they’ll have to realise eventually. Weiss is a certified genius, and Ruby’s smart too. Then we won’t have to keep all these secrets and I won’t have to keep pretending to be ignorant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of course Penny knows who her two dumbass girlfriends are, the three of them are in possession of two braincells and Penny's the one who has them most of the time. 
> 
> So this isn't going to be a continuous story like my other works, more a collection of oneshots in chronological order of the various shenanigans the heroes and villains of Vale City get up to. It was too fun of a concept for me to just drop completely, so here we go.
> 
> I've set up a [discord](https://discord.gg/4t3y25e) so feel free to join and stuff, I'm pretty active there these days.
> 
> Big thanks to [machiavellianFictionist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/machiavellianFictionist) for proofreading and being hella cute. Lots of thanks too to my lovely girlfriend [Ruby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyAndNanaAO3) for beta reading and keeping me sane.
> 
> Thank you too to my official supporters, send a PM or hop on the discord server for details.


	2. Chapter 2

“Penny, would you mind making a note that the water condensation circuits require a  _ 4.3 _ MΩ resistor? The last one wasn’t strong enough.” Weiss called over to Penny, wiping the frost off her goggles.

“You don’t say.” Penny snarked as she helped clean the workspace off after the small explosion of ice.

“You’re making me regret teaching you about sarcasm.” Weiss sighed, grabbing some cloths to mop up the melting ice. “I get the impression you’re enjoying it a bit too much.”

“You’re the one who wanted an assistant who would help keep you and your ego in check. It’s just one of the many ways I do that.” Penny pointed out, wiping up some water and squeezing it out into a nearby bucket. “If you dislike it so much, you could always just remove the protocols.”

“No!” Weiss yelped, giving Penny an aghast look. “You know I’d never mess with your mind like that.”

“I know you wouldn’t, Weiss.” Penny reassured her girlfriend. “I was just joking. I know you respect my autonomy.” Weiss breathed a small sigh of relief. It was an odd thing to get so worked up about, but Weiss cared very much that Penny knew that she would never change her.

When Weiss had first created Penny, she hadn’t intended to create a fully sentient machine. Penny’s original purpose was to primarily act as her lab assistant and remind her to eat and take her meds, and to help her manage her occasional manic phases and delusions of grandeur.

Over time, however, Penny’s programming expanded to encompass a wide variety of things, as did her physical capabilities as Weiss put together a body for her assistant. By the time she’d left her Father’s R&D department after she was swindled out of her patents, Penny was pretty much complete. It was a complete surprise that one day, whilst Weiss had been working on a weapon that would level SchneeTech’s headquarters, Penny had announced that she had achieved sentience.

Of course, Weiss had been quite befuddled by this development and ran all the tests she could think of. When she took a peek at Penny’s programming, she found code there that she hadn’t written at all, and more was being generated as she watched.

The robot was adapting and learning, and one of the things she’d learned was that she was attracted to Weiss and wanted to date her. Much to Weiss’ shame, she’d fainted when Penny had said that, and came to about an hour later to Penny making her dinner.

It was an… unusual start to a relationship, and an unusual relationship too, but Weiss wouldn’t trade it for the world. Of course, it did bring up a few ethical issues, what with Weiss being Penny’s creator, but she’d somewhat mitigated that in her eyes by removing her admin privileges from Penny’s software.

Then there were the  _ many _ accusations, once it got out that not only was the supervillainess Byte was a robot but also that she’d been created by Frost and was now dating her, that Frost had made herself a sexbot.

Weiss had been both horrified and infuriated by the rumour, and had subsequently frozen solid some of the main gossips in retaliation. It did somewhat baffle Weiss that Penny wanted to date her without being programmed to, but that was how it was, and it made them happy.

“Weiss? Were you thinking about taking over the world again?” Weiss’ reminiscing ground to a halt and she blinked in confusion for a few moments before remembering what she was doing.

“I was not!” She protested with a huff, wiping aimlessly at more of the melting ice.

“Then what were you thinking about?”

“I was thinking about… lunch.” Penny raised an eyebrow at Weiss’ lie, so she doubled down on it. “I’ve been craving burritos for the last couple of days.”

“I guess we could get burritos.” Weiss breathed a small sigh of relief as Penny went along with the lie. “Oh! Shall I text Ruby to see if she wants to join us?”

“She’s probably busy, I don’t think her job gives her much of a lunch break. Or much time off at all.” Weiss frowned unhappily. It had been a few weeks since Ruby had started her new job, and several nights a week she would come home late, citing scheduling issues.

It had been tolerable at first, Weiss had her own things that would keep her out late every so often, but after an entire week of Ruby coming in after midnight and Weiss had been very tempted to suit up and force Ruby’s manager to give her more favourable shifts.

“It can’t hurt to text.” Penny said, her phone already out and typing out a message.

“It would if she has to say no.” Weiss muttered, finishing cleaning up her work surface and tossing her cloth aside.

“You don’t know that she will.” Penny assured Weiss as she sent off the message. “And whether she’s able to come or not, we can still have a nice lunch together.”

“I suppose…” Weiss grumbled as she started the arduous task of replacing all her tools, which had been knocked about by the force of the icy explosion. Everything had its own place and an organised workspace was a productive one.

“And she’s coming.” Penny announced waving her phone in triumph. “I told you she would.”

“Okay, that’s good.” Weiss smiled a little as she placed her screwdrivers back in their assigned pegboard holes. “Same place as usual?”

“Of course. You think I’d make you try a new place when you’re already stressed with this weather disruptor?” Penny flashed Weiss a grin, which Weiss returned gratefully. “You should probably get changed and hang your coveralls out to dry though.”

Looking down at her front, Weiss realised that her body had also been coated in frost, which had now melted, and she was only just now feeling through her underlayer. “That would be a good idea, I just need to finish organising everything.”

“I’ll tell Ruby to meet us there in half an hour.” Penny giggled, shaking her head as Weiss pouted and returned to her task.

* * *

“Hey, Sun Dragon, you mind if I bounce in a bit?” Redshift asked her partner as they sat on a rooftop, legs dangling over the edge.

“Yeah, sure. How come though?” Sun Dragon asked in between sips from her water flask. It was important to stay hydrated when heroing, their dad had taught them that.

“Weiss and Penny want to get lunch with me. We’re getting burritos.” Redshift explained as she tucked her phone away. Things had been going pretty okay for her since her humiliation at the hands of FrostByte. A few weeks of going out and stopping crime meant that people were starting to forget about that slip up and take her seriously again. It had meant quite a few late nights, most criminals didn’t have the courtesy of commiting crimes during normal working hours, but it was fine.

“Oh, yeah, sure. You really should spend time with your girlfriends.” Sun Dragon commented, screwing the cap on her flask and tucking it into her utility belt.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Redshift asked suspiciously. She knew what the tone meant. It meant that Sun Dragon was trying to politely reprimand her for something, but Redshift wasn’t quite smart enough to work out what exactly.

“Well, I noticed you’ve been pulling quite a lot of late nights recently.” Sun Dragon said in her best diplomatic tone, the one she used for negotiating hostage situations. “Like, a lot.”

“Well, yeah, after that bank thing went south, I need to build my reputation back up, and the only way to do that is to get out there and stop crimes.” Redshift explained with a sigh. “I’ve been telling them that I keep being given closing shifts at my ‘job’.” She crooked her fingers to make air quotes.

“Yeah, that’s believable and all, but this much?” Sun Dragon’s mask shifted and Redshift knew she’d raised an eyebrow. “Even if they do still believe you about having to close, it’s still going to put strain on your relationship.”

“Strain?” Redshift laughed nervously. “Nah, that would never happen. We’ve been dating for ages.”

“When was the last time you sat down and talked to your girlfriends? Like actually talking to them, not just saying goodbye in the morning or whatever.”

Redshift had to wrack her brains for a moment there as she thought. She hadn’t actually seen them that morning, she’d had to rush out when she heard about a hostage situation on the news. When had she last spoken to Weiss and Penny?

“The fact that you actually have to think about this means that it clearly wasn’t recent enough.” Sun Dragon cut in, shaking her head. “Look, Red, I get that you love the whole superhero thing, I love it too, but it’s going to destroy your personal life if you don’t learn to balance it better.”

“Oh, right, so I guess that’s why you don’t have a girlfriend and just get it on with Nightshade and Karmaleon.” Redshift fired back defensively without really thinking it through. “Shit, sorry I-.”

“I’m going to keep patrolling, enjoy your lunch with your girlfriends.” Sun Dragon said shortly, getting to her feet and leaping away without another word, leaving behind a very guilty Redshift, who got to her feet and sped off to get changed.

* * *

“She’s not coming. I knew it.” Weiss moaned, slumping against the brick wall before remembering how filthy those things were and standing up again.

“She’s only a couple of minutes late, Weiss, and she’d have texted if she wasn’t coming.” Penny reassured her, patting her on the shoulder. “Just give it a little longer.”

“Fine.” Weiss huffed as she folded her arms and looked up and down the street impatiently. Ruby wasn’t going to be here, she knew it. She’d abandoned her and Penny like she had been for the last several days. It was just a precursor to Ruby leaving them, and then Weiss would have to talk to her therapist again, and that was just annoying as all hell and...

“Sorry!” Weiss’ ruminations on what she was going to have to say to her therapist were interrupted by a loud cry from down the street, and Ruby came running up, completely out of breath. “I thought I had more time to get here.”

“I don’t know how you do it, Ruby.” Penny shook her head in mild exasperation. “How are you late to everything?”

“I guess I’m just bad at timekeeping.” Ruby panted, grinning up at Weiss and Penny apologetically, though her smile did seem to be a little forced. “We gonna get some burritos, then? I am starving.” Ruby pushed open the front door to the restaurant and Weiss was about to follow when Penny held her back for a moment.

“I told you she’d come.” She told Weiss softly, and the white-haired girl just shrugged.

“She still might not have.” She tried to justify her doubts, but it didn’t work.

“Weiss, have you been taking your meds recently?” Penny asked seriously, and Weiss huffed.

“Yes, I have. I don’t want a repeat of last time.”

“Weiss, if you’re having more thought’s like this, maybe you should talk to your therapist, see if perhaps your dosage needs changing.” Penny suggested, concern warming her voice, but Weiss shook her head.

“The dosage is fine. This just happens sometimes, you know that.” Weiss grumped, glowering at Penny. “It’s not as though I don’t have any reason to feel like she’s going to leave us.”

“Then we need to talk to her about it.” Penny insisted and was about to continue, but the door swung open again and Ruby’s head poked out.

“Uh, you girls coming?” Nodding, Weiss pulled away from Penny and walked into the restaurant. She quickly navigated to her favourite booth and slid into it, one of the many reasons this was one of her favourite places to eat. Most of the others she’d tried had you wait in a queue and have to suffer as some person ahead took absolutely ages to decide what they wanted. This restaurant did table service, and as such, was far superior.

Oddly, the place was a lot quieter than usual. There seemed to be less staff too. Ruby and Penny joined Weiss in the booth as one of the waitresses came over to take their orders.

“Can I get a large burrito, coriander rice, carnitas, mild salsa and cheese, please?” Weiss reeled off, not bothering to look at the menu. “Oh, and tap water to drink, please.” The waitress dutifully noted it down and turned to Ruby, who was busy inspecting the menu despite having been here several times before.

“Uh, could I get a large burrito as well please, with tomato rice and steak, and all the other fixings too, and a coke to drink.” She said finally, setting aside the menu and beaming up at the waitress.

“And I’ll have a regular burrito, coriander rice, steak and cheese, please. No salsa.” Penny finished off the order and the waitress scribbled the last of it down.

“Great, I’ll get your drinks out to you in a sec.” The waitress chirped and then left the three of them. Ruby proceeded to slump over the table.

“Work got you down?” Penny asked her as Weiss neatly unfolded her napkin and set it on her lap in preparation.

“Nah, work’s fine. I just had a bit of an argument with Yang.” Ruby sighed, reaching out and starting to fiddle with the bottle of chilli sauce.

“What about?” Penny asked sympathetically but Ruby just shrugged.

“It doesn’t really matter, calling it an argument’s actually pretty generous.” Ruby sighed again, tapping out a rhythm on the bottle with her fingernails. “I said something I shouldn’t have and I upset her.”

“Is there anything we can do?” Penny offered, only for Ruby to shake her head.

“It’s fine, I’ll just apologise to her when I next see her.” Raising her head off the table, she gave Penny a grateful smile before looking over at Weiss and furrowing her brow in confusion. “Weiss, how come your hair is damp?”

“Lab accident, nothing to worry about. It’ll dry up in a bit.” Weiss answered quickly, silently cursing herself for not noticing that her hair had also gotten wet. Any lingering awkwardness from this was thankfully alleviated though as the waitress came back to the table with their drinks.

“Thanks.” Weiss took her drink and sipped at it briefly before setting it down and looking to the waitress curiously. “How come it’s so quiet in here? Lunchtimes are normally pretty busy.”

“Oh, it’s that new place that opened up a few weeks ago just a couple of blocks down, Burrito Bonanza.” The waitress rolled her eyes. “It’s been like this ever since they opened. They undercut us on prices, so everyone’s been going there instead.”

“That’s not great.” Ruby commiserated. “I’m sorry.”

“It fucking sucks, is what it is.” The waitress grumbled, then caught herself. “Please don’t tell the boss I swore in front of customers, he’s already stressed out as it is. If things keep going the way they’re going, he might have to close down.”

“What.” Weiss’ voice crackled with icy rage.

“Running a restaurant’s not an easy job, lots of places just can’t make it, but a cheapo franchise opening up nearby doesn’t help at all.” The waitress sighed, shaking her head. “I actually quite like this job, the boss pays actual wages instead of shitty tipping stuff.”

“Is there anything we could do to help?” Ruby asked, evidently unaware of the gears turning in Weiss’ head as she worked out exactly how she was going to save her favourite burrito place.

“Not unless you can put Burrito Bonanza out of business.” The waitress chuckled before shaking her head. “Look at me, spilling all my woes to some customers. I should get back to work.” With a small wave, she left the three to their own devices.

“Well, that sucks. I like this place.” Ruby groaned, flopping out on the table.

“It’d be a shame if they closed down.” Penny agreed before noticing the look of deep thought on Weiss’ face. “Weiss, what are you thinking about?”

“Nothing, just thinking.” Weiss deflected as she finally settled on her plans. She was not going to lose one of her favourite restaurants, not if she had anything to say about it. Or rather, not if FrostByte had anything to say about it.

* * *

Penny’s Log

Entry No.: 2489

Date: 2018-05-29T14:03:24-5:00

I am concerned for Weiss’ current mental state. She refused to confront Ruby about why she has been coming home late so often. It’s putting a strain on our relationship, especially as Ruby has been doing it so often. Obviously, it’s because of her hero work, but Weiss is inclined to believe that she just has a bad manager and is liable to do something reckless about it.

Which brings me to my next point of concern about her. Ever since we finished lunch with Ruby, she has abandoned her current work on the localised weather pattern manipulator in favour of destroying the Burrito Bonanza. She has already devised five plans to level the building, one of which involves sentient salsa.

I know Weiss has issues with change, but this feels more than a little extreme. Then again, Weiss has always been extreme when it comes to responding to things, see log entry no. 1674 when she decided we would become supervillains.

All I can really hope to do is get her to talk out her feelings with her therapist and ensure that not too many people get injured if she does try to destroy the Burrito Bonanza. Perhaps I can talk her into funding the restaurant herself, that way there’s no need for her to genetically modify tomatoes and grant them sentience. A very bad plan, since Weiss has no prior experience in bioengineering other than playing Spore a few times.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was craving burritos when I wrote this. Also it was supposed to just be fluffy humour, not this mild relationship angst or the strain on Ruby and Yang's relationship. That said, it is a refreshing change to have their relationship be more strained than I normally write it. There definitely some uncomfortable history there between them.
> 
> I've set up a [discord](https://discord.gg/4t3y25e) so feel free to join and stuff, I'm pretty active there these days.
> 
> Big thanks to [machiavellianFictionist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/machiavellianFictionist) for proofreading and being just awesome. Lots of thanks too to my lovely girlfriend [Ruby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyAndNanaAO3) for beta reading and being an absolute cutie.
> 
> Thank you too to my official supporters, send a PM or hop on the discord server for details.


	3. Chapter 3

“Weiss, I still don’t think this is a good idea.” Penny warned as Weiss collected up her gear, ready for some villainy. “I still say we should just hire Nightshade and Karmaleon to do some industrial espionage.”

“That would cost money, money we can’t afford to spend on such things.” Weiss said for what felt like the hundredth time, but was actually only the fifteenth, as she hunted around for her goggles. “Besides, since the failure of the sentient salsa, we need to try more direct methods.” Weiss shuddered as she remembered that awful idea. The screams of the tomatoes still haunted her dreams.

“I’m all for more direct methods.” Penny said, following Weiss as she hunted for the integral part of her villain costume. “But you could very easily just plant evidence of unhygienic conditions and get them closed down like that.”

“That would only be a short term solution.” Weiss explained patiently, still hunting for her errant goggles. “They’d reopen in no time, and then we’ll be back to square one.”

“I see your point, but is levelling the site really the best solution?”

“Of course it is. It will take them far too long to open up a new venue, and if they do, we just level that one as well until they get the message that Burrito Bonanza is not welcome in this city.” Penny stopped in her tracks as Weiss finally realised that she’d had the goggles up on her forehead the entire time.

“When you say, not welcome in this city, do you mean…?” She asked, eyes wide with shock.

“Are we going to level all the franchises in the city? Yes.” Weiss grinned evilly as she lowered her goggles and pulled up her hood, completing her transformation into Frost.

“But why?!”

“Two reasons. First, if we just destroy that one location near another burrito place, who do you think will get the blame? Either them or one of their loyal customers, so we need to diversify our targets.” Frost explained as she started checking her weapons were primed and ready. “And second, I just don’t like them. They use substandard ingredients that I wouldn’t feed to a rat, so I want them gone.”

“Those certainly are some reasons.” Penny sighed, starting to gather up her own equipment. “Might I suggest, however, if we’re going after multiple locations, that we don’t completely level the place? Maybe just destroy the interior.”

“But that doesn’t send nearly as strong of a message.” Frost complained as she finished her checks. 

“How about we only level the freestanding buildings?” Byte suggested, her faceplate in place and her vocal distortion turned on. “That way we don’t cause unnecessary damage to the surrounding buildings. We’re not like Cinder and her cronies, we’re supposed to have principles.”

“You’re right.” Frost admitted after a moment’s thought. Byte was right, FrostByte weren’t a couple of two-bit thugs. They had a righteous cause, and someday the world would see that they weren’t the villains. “Only the standalone buildings, then. Did you have anything else you need to do before we head out?”

“You should probably text Ruby to let her know we might be late for dinner if we’re going to be doing this.” Byte suggested, and Frost winced before pulling out her phone. She’d have much preferred it if Byte was the one to do this. Frost hadn’t exactly been the most attentive girlfriend as she planned her attack on Burrito Bonanza, but the look on Byte’s faceplate let her know that it was up to her to text Ruby.

Apology sent, Frost put her phone away and gave her partner an expectant look. “Can we go now?” Byte nodded and joined Frost as she headed for the door.

“I know you’re still upset about Ruby not spending as much time with us, but that’s no reason for you to be mean and rude to her.” Byte reprimanded Frost gently, the villainess sighing in exasperation.

“I’m not! Besides, she’s the one pulling away.” Frost tried to defend herself as they stepped out of the warehouse and into the afternoon sun. “Can we not talk about this right now? It’s hard to do supervillain stuff when I’m distracted by my relationship issues.”

“Alright, but we are talking about this later, maybe even with Ruby.” Byte said firmly before holding out her arms and wrapping them around Frost. “Now hold tight.” Frost did so as Byte started up the rocket boosters in her feet. They weren’t that strong, but she could carry them a fair distance, enough that they wouldn’t be seen walking to and from their lair.

Really they should get a nondescript car or something so they didn’t have to do this. Adding that to her to-do list, Frost steeled herself and tried not to look down as Byte rocketed them both into the sky towards their first target.

* * *

It had been several days since Redshift had patrolled with Sun Dragon. Things were still tense between the two of them after Redshift’s careless words. She’d tried calling and apologising to her sister, but it seemed like Sun Dragon wasn’t in much of a forgiving mood.

Redshift really did regret what she’d said, but if Sun Dragon was unwilling to talk to her, then all she could really do was just keep going about her day, patrolling and stopping crimes. It had been a rather slow day so far. She’d stopped three muggings, helped an old lady across the street and eaten three king-size burger combos from her favourite burger stand.

All in all, not a bad day, but Redshift did feel rather unchallenged. Where were all the supervillains? Hardly a day went by without there being some kind of super crime being committed. Hell, at this point, Redshift would take a perfectly normal bank robbery. Just something to take her mind off of how her sister still refused to talk to her.

As though her prayers were answers, faintly off in the distance, she heard the sound of screaming and the smashing of glass. At last! Pulling her goggles down, Redshift got up from the roof edge she’d been sitting on and sped down the nearby fire escape.

Within seconds, she was at the scene of the crime, which she was surprised to learn was a Burrito Bonanza. The franchise had only barely registered on Redshift’s radar before it had been brought up a little while back over lunch. Customers and employees were fleeing the building as clouds of what looked like mist rolled out of the shattered windows and doors.

“What’s going on in there?” Redshift asked one of the fleeing civilians.

“Supervillains, two of them!” She shrieked in panic. “They’re destroying the place, said they were going to destroy the whole building!” Well, that was a problem. Letting the woman go, Redshift turned her attention to the building, trying to quickly think of a plan of attack.

If she could get the villains out of the restaurant, she could leverage the open spaces of the parking lot and take advantage of her speed. Plan set, Redshift readied herself and darted into the restaurant.

This proved to be something of a mistake, as the moment she set foot over the threshold, her boots lost their grip on the floor and she went sliding, crashing into a table and alerting the two villains to her presence.

“Who’d be foolish enough to rush into a building we made abundantly clear was being demolished?” A familiar and irritated voice called out from the mist. Scrambling to her feet, Redshift let out a loud groan.

“Not you two again!” She groaned as she came face to face with FrostByte. “Really? You’re destroying a restaurant now? I thought you claimed to be some kind of noble demon or something.”

“You couldn’t possibly fathom the complexities of my plans!” Frost announced, clearly unable to resist grandstanding just a little. “Anyway, why don’t you run away so we can do our jobs?”

“Uh, you do know it’s my job to stop you from doing this, right?” Redshift asked rhetorically as she tried to find solid footing.

“I advise you walk away, Redshift. I’d hate for you to be humiliated again.” Byte suggested, attempting to be the voice of reason. “If you fight us, you will lose.”

“Not likely!” Redshift declared, finally finding her footing and zipping forward. She’d learned from her previous fight with the duo, no longer moving in predictable patterns, and just kept moving. It seemed to be working as it caught Frost off guard and cost her valuable seconds to bring her icy arsenal to bear.

It was almost trivial for Redshift to outmanoeuvre Frost and get up close to start landing punches on her. Frost’s reaction time was just too slow to compete with Redshift’s superhuman speeds and she was forced to curl up to protect herself.

This was actually going really well, and Redshift was just prepared to pull out a set of zip cuffs, when she was grabbed roughly by her scarf and tossed across the room. Once again, she’d forgotten that she was dealing with a duo, not just one supervillain.

Redshift had lots of practice landing smoothly after getting thrown and was fully prepared to land in a crouch, ready to shoot forward and take out Byte. Unfortunately for her, all that training had been done on solid non-slippery surfaces, and as she landed, she found her feet slipping out from underneath her as she landed on another patch of ice.

It took several precious seconds for Redshift to regain her balance, but that was more than enough for Frost to recover from her attack and start spraying down the place with her ice, removing more of Redshift’s available running surfaces. 

Thinking fast, Redshift grabbed a nearby napkin dispenser and hurled it at Frost. It made a satisfying thunk as it smacked into her chest and sent her reeling, giving Redshift the opening she needed to move to an area with more solid footing.

“Byte! Do something!” Frost shrieked, catching her balance on a table. Redshift could almost feel the exasperation emanating from Byte as she acquiesced to her partner’s orders and began firing off lasers in the hero’s direction.

Redshift had never quite bothered to work out exactly how fast she was, but she was fairly certain that she was nowhere near the speed of light. If the villain wanted, she could have easily incinerated her with a laser Redshift couldn’t hope to dodge. It seemed though that Byte was going easy on her and was telegraphing her attacks to give her just enough time to dodge.

As she tried to come up with a way to resolve the situation, Redshift wondered exactly what Byte’s stake in all of this was. Frost had made her motivations very clear the first time they’d met, but Byte’s participation was a mystery. Perhaps she had no choice being a robot and was bound to obey her creator’s will.

“You don’t have to do this!” She called out imploringly to Byte as she ducked under another laser beam. “You don’t have to obey her just because she made you!”

“What?!” Frost shrieked in affront and the lasers stopped immediately as Frost stopped fiddling with her weapons and just stormed over to Redshift. “She does not follow my orders because I created her! Do you really think I would disrespect her autonomy that much?”

Redshift’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly, unsure of how to answer this as Frost continued on jabbing Redshift in the chest repeatedly. “Byte has complete free will. I can’t even access her code anymore, I no longer have admin rights. She is her own person who can make her own decisions, and she is absolutely _not_ a sexbot!”

“I never said she was?” Redshift responded nervously. Clearly she had hit a nerve with that but Frost didn’t seem to be listening.

“Oh, look at the nerdy scientist, obviously there’s no way she could get a partner without having to build one for herself.” Frost was full on ranting now, her quest to destroy the building seemingly forgotten in her rage. “So what if I made her, she chose to be with me. It was her choice!”

“Alright, alright, I’m sorry.” Redshift finally managed to get her apology in. “I’m sorry I implied Byte didn’t have free will.”

“You should be.” Frost sniffed angrily, folding her arms and glaring at the hero. “But I’m not the one you should be apologising to.”

“What?” Redshift was confused for a moment before she noticed Byte standing a little off to the side, her pixelated face frowning sadly. “Oh! I’m sorry, Byte. It was rude of me to suggest that you had no agency in this.”

“It’s alright, I understand why you might think I had no choice in the matter, given we are committing crimes.” Byte accepted the apology, though her mask still remained in a small frown.

“Yeah…” Redshift shuffled uncomfortably. “Um, do we start fighting again or something?”

“Ugh, my heart’s not really in it now.” Frost grumbled, already starting to power down her weapons. “We’ll have to do this some other day, or come up with another way to get rid of them.”

“I’m sure this will have sent them a pretty strong message.” Byte reassured her partner, walking over and patting her on the shoulder. Redshift was still rather stunned by the turn of events and it took her a little while to remember that, just because they had stopped committing the crime, it didn’t mean they shouldn’t still be arrested.

“You can’t just walk away!” She called to the duo as they slowly made their way to the door, Frost still grumbling under her breath. “You’re still in trouble for causing all this property damage!” The two paused in their slow retreat and exchanged glances before Frost sighed.

“Look, I’m really not in the mood to keep fighting after you insulted my girlfriend like that. But if you want a fight, I can promise you I’ve still got some anger to work out.” She flexed her arms menacingly and Redshift could hear the whirring of her exoskeleton. Perhaps fighting the woman you just royally pissed off wasn’t the best idea.

“Maybe we should just table this for now.” Redshift admitted, realising her chances against an angry Frost were even worse than facing off against the pair. “I’ll just, um, go, then.”

“You do that.” Frost said icily before turning around and departing the restaurant with Byte in tow. Once the pair had left, Redshift let out a long sigh as the tension ebbed away from her body. That had possibly been the weirdest fight Redshift had ever been in. Shaking her head, Redshift sped off. Hopefully there’d be a nice simple mugging she could stop to take her mind off the strangeness of that encounter.

* * *

Penny’s Log

Entry No.: 2502

Date: 2018-06-03T16:34:45-5:00

Weiss has called off her latest plan to destroy all the locations of Burrito Bonanza in the city. Thankfully, she has taken my advice and is now looking into less destructive means of closing down the franchise. Hopefully, she will take my suggestion of hiring Blake and Ilia. I’m certain those two will have no problem finding enough violations to get them sued into bankruptcy.

We encountered Ruby today when we were attempting to execute Weiss’ initial plan to destroy Burrito Bonanza. It went as expected, apart from when Ruby said I didn’t need to obey Weiss just because she created me.

Naturally, this upset Weiss a lot, and whilst I appreciate her coming to my defence, I would have preferred to do it myself. Oddly, however, I feel more affected by Ruby’s comment than I normally am. I am no stranger to people suggesting that I am nothing but a mindless drone following Weiss’ orders, but to hear from Ruby of all people, it hurt.

I fear her response if she were to learn that I am an artificial life form created by Weiss. Not only because it would almost certainly lead to her deducing our identities, and whilst I would like for the charade to end, I foresee that if it ends in this particular manner, it would have disastrous consequences for our relationship, but also because it may lead to her questioning the nature of our relationship.

Perhaps she would wonder if I am capable of loving her, or if my feelings for her were simply coded into me by Weiss. I am certain that my feelings are both real and mine alone, but it’s hard to convince people of that.

This log has been unusually introspective, but I shall see it as a good thing and a sign of my sense of self being able to reflect upon my actions and thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that could have gone a lot worse, shame the sentient salsa plan didn't work out. WE just keep seeing all these little cracks in the relationship that come with keeping pretty much half of your life separate from your partner. Even with Penny who knows exactly what's going on is under stress with this as well. But who knows when it'll all come to a head.
> 
> I've set up a [discord](https://discord.gg/4t3y25e) so feel free to join and stuff, I'm pretty active there these days.
> 
> Big thanks to [machiavellianFictionist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/machiavellianFictionist) for proofreading and being amazing. Lots of thanks too to my lovely girlfriend [Ruby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyAndNanaAO3) for beta reading even if she does keep flooding my dash with memes.
> 
> Thank you too to my official supporters, send a PM or hop on the discord server for details.


End file.
